Monday, April 24, 2017

Nosey neighbors? Annoying homeowners association? You
can compost in your backyard for free without anyone knowing.

Composting in a pit or a trench allows you to:

Improve poor soil

Compost without worry of smells or attracting raccoons and other furry critters

Spend $0 to compost

How to Compost in a Trench

Dig a pit or a trench as deep as you can comfortably dig.
One foot deep is perfect. It can be as long or wide as you need.

Place food scraps and leaves into the trench, leaving 5
inches of air space to ground level.

Fill the rest of the pit or trench in with soil.

If you do not have enough material to fill your trench right
away, cover food scraps with soil, leaves, or a tarp. Exposed food scraps will
attract flies and other hungry creatures to your compost.

Cold Composting

Trench composting is cold composting so it will take longer
to decompose than in a compost bin or pile. You will also not need to harvest
the finished compost. It is already there, incorporated into your soil.

Cool.

Free! Woo-Hoo!

Of course, aside from the cost of a shovel, which most
people already have, trench and pit composting are free.

But, “there is no such thing as a free lunch.” Yep. Trench
composting won’t cost you money, but it will cost you time and sweat while
digging a big hole. Or a bunch of holes. Or a bunch of trenches.

You will have to dig. A lot.

I Buried My Food Scraps, Now What?

The decomposing food scraps could steal nitrogen from
whatever you plant, so either wait a year to plant anything on top of a
composting trench or add fertilizer.

If you want to get fancy with your hole of decomposing food
scraps, check out these sites:

Tuesday, April 11, 2017

Guest post by Brad MillerWith the start of spring, everything begins to
green and we see many beautiful colors. With your compost pile, color is
also very important. The two most important colors for your compost pile are green and
brown. Green materials, such as vegetable and fruit scraps, coffee grounds, and fresh grass trimmings provide nitrogen to your compost pile.